This coming Friday heralds the official start of the holiday buying season and the biggest shopping day of the year. You can bet that there will be a handful of great deals, but we wanted to make sure you had a little direction going in to the holidays, so we're giving you this handy guide. Today we'll be taking on the Wii, but keep checking back, as we'll be covering all the major consoles throughout the week.

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The "Monster Hunter" franchise's reach has always been limited in the United States. The series is a Pokémon-level phenomenon in its native Japan, but has only recently been upgraded from "obscure curio" to "cult hit" on this side of the Pacific. The real barrier between "MoHun" and Western success has been its lack of online play. Though every "Monster Hunter" can be played solo, it's impossible to access the game's best bits without other human players. Hardcore, grind-intensive, multiplayer action RPGs plain need an online option to find an audience in the United States.

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by John Constantine

This game is in the running for “Biggest E3 Surprise of All Time”. Just look at the facts. With Nintendo re-releasing the “Metroid Prime” trilogy on a single disk, you’d think they were winding down the series, trying to placate fans with one last package. Nintendo R&D 1 hasn’t worked on the “Metroid” series in five years and their last all new franchise entry was “Metroid Fusion” in 2002. And Team Ninja, well, “Dead or Alive” and “Ninja Gaiden” aren’t exactly games that jive with Nintendo’s family friendly, “Everyone’s Game” ethos. Yet here is “Metroid: Other M” in all its glory, co-developed by Team Ninja and R&D 1.

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by John Constantine

Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma and the “Legend of Zelda” team have been talking. They’ve been talking about what “Zelda” is and what a new “Zelda” can be. Sadly, they’re still in the discussion process. Miyamoto explained that as much as he wanted to have a new “Zelda” for Wii to show at E3 2009, they’re still in an experimental phase with the game. Not wanting to leave everyone at the Developer’s Roundtable empty handed, he shared a piece of concept art for the game with us. The image featured a very “Twilight Princess”-looking Link standing behind a shrouded, childlike blue figure. Not a whole lot to go on, but still a sip of cool water in a “Zelda”-less desert. Miyamoto hopes to have a WiiMotion Plus enabled “Zelda” to show at E3 2010.

John Constantine

Mario and Luigi are not unfamiliar with multiplayer gaming. The original “Mario Bros” had simultaneous two-player action that was equal parts cooperation and competition and “New Super Mario Bros” had its own devoted one-on-one competitive mode that saw the brothers battling it out for stars in endlessly scrolling levels. There has, however, never been anything quite like “New Super Mario Bros Wii”. It’s a traditional, old school Mario platformer with sidescrolling levels full of secret paths, hidden rooms, and littered with Goombas, Koopas, and edible, body-morphing mushrooms. Four people can play through these levels at the same time. Sweet.

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by John Constantine

The first thing you do in “Wii Sports Resort” is jump out of a plane. Your Mii, that adorable Nintendo-ified caricature of yourself, leaps into the air over Woo Hoo Island and plummets to the ground. This isn’t just your introduction to the game. It’s your introduction to the WiiMotion Plus’ one-to-one action. Your Mii’s whole body responds to every movement of the new Wiimote and lets you acclimate to the far more sensitive controls before throwing you into the game’s twelve sports.

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